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It’s summer time! Wow! I never thought summer here in the US can be as hot as in the Philippines. It’s the same world, I think, lol! You know, one of the fondest memories I have while growing up was playing mud in the rice field. I remembered how scared we are when my young, little sister was kicked by the horse maybe because it was being invaded by our loud screaming. All of us sure loved playing in the rice field. There was no TV back then. In the afternoon, we just hang out together in the rice field like it’s some sort of a play ground to us. And when we get hungry, we just look for some fruits to eat. It’s either the green mango or papaya- we didn’t care. Sometimes, we just climb at our neighbor’s guava tree to satisfy our hunger, hahaha!
Our summer vacation (in school) starts in April to May. And that’s the harvest season for the rice too. One of our favorite chore then is to take care of the rice field. That is, to keep the bird from eating the almost ripen rice grains. Our Dad would let us stay in there to take care of the farm.
The main problem for the farmers during this season is the bird. They usually flock together to grab some food. If you don’t scare them away, they won’t left anything for you to harvest at all. So, we tag a thread together, put an empty can with some stone on it and it will go from one pole to another. So, when the birds will come to touch the hays of rice, we’ll just have to touch the pole that connected all the thread. It will make a noise to threaten the birds. Pretty easy job! But the easiest though is this ingenuity that the natives had created- the scarecrow. Some people had been very creative just like this:
The main problem for the farmers during this season is the bird. They usually flock together to grab some food. If you don’t scare them away, they won’t left anything for you to harvest at all. So, we tag a thread together, put an empty can with some stone on it and it will go from one pole to another. So, when the birds will come to touch the hays of rice, we’ll just have to touch the pole that connected all the thread. It will make a noise to threaten the birds. Pretty easy job! But the easiest though is this ingenuity that the natives had created- the scarecrow. Some people had been very creative just like this:
(take a closer look to appreciate their efforts:)
Oh, I can still hear the echoes of laughter while running around, making our kite fly and stepping on the mud like it’s not going to end. I missed those days, really!
4 Grateful Heart's Words:
Wow! Sounds like a fun childhood you have on the rice field. You sounded like my mom when she tells us the story of her childhood.
I've never stepped on her province ever and even my dad's despite having travelled so many places in our country, sad really.
That scarecrow reminds me of the one I made :P on top of our roof to drive the birds away shakin my broadband antenna :P lol I used a Moriones mask:P
Thanks for sharing this one :) I had fun reading it.
Wow your childhood sounds really fun. I didn't grew up in the farm but I can imagine it's lots of fun especially when I read about your experiences. We will one day move back to the Philippines and live on a farm too. I am looking forward to that - A simple life.
You have been tagged girl - A question for you!
yap, girls:) it was a whole lot of fun then!
that was very funny of you, Earthlingorgeous... I know what that broadband antenna with scarecrow means, hahaha! that's pretty creative though:)
Wow! Pinayjade, that's very nice of you guys to move in PI, specially with the farm, hmmmmm... very, very relaxing, simple yet very fulfilling:)
(that was my parents biggest dream)...
all the best to all of us, hehehe...
cheers!
Hehe, shawie. You must have such my same joy during our childhood. Thanks for sharing, I love this much. To enfrighten some kind of small birds like pipit, bondol and gelatik we made some bebegig, an android look puppet made of an coconutshell for the skeleton and weared such torn kebaya and old sarong. It's look like human rock when village'swind blow. But sometime birds knew it's fake. They donot scared. So we made such scaringdrum made of a kerosene tin slammed periodically by a bamboo arm with a stone on tip that propelled by a bamboo wind catcher. With this kind, villager knew how about the wind flow too.
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